Cold weather in Ukraine could complicate gas transit to European Union

After the onset of the cold weather Ukraine could not guarantee a reliable gas transit to the European Union because of the lack of own resources, the Minister of Energy of Russia Alexander Novak stated addressing the journalists on November 16th, Interfax news agency informed.

“As for the coming winter, there are high risks (for transit – Interfax) associated with the fact that the gas supplies pumped by Ukraine into the underground storage facilities are less than it is required according to the regulations and compared to the previous years. It is 14.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas now, and they need 17-18 bcm. Therefore, there are high risks during the cold weather that there will be a shortfall in gas for Ukraine,” Novak said.

On November 16th, Novak announced the trilateral talks on gas between Russian Federation, European Union, and Ukraine. Ukraine stopped direct purchasing of gas from Russia since November 25th, 2015.